Due to the evolution of well-known social networks such as MySpace and Facebook, it has become commonplace for a user to upload digital data products comprising photo, video, and/or audio data to a social network database to share with other users. In a social network, data products are generally organized according to user, and they are accessed through a web page that presents links to data products identified using, for example, thumbnails and brief descriptions.
According to the Facebook web site (http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics, retrieved May 8, 2010), Facebook has more than 400 million active users, 50% of its active users log on to Facebook in any given day, the average user has 130 friends, and people spend over 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook. According to the MySpace web site (http://www.myspace.com/pressroom?url=/fact+sheet/, retrieved May 8, 2010), MySpace has more than 113 million monthly active users worldwide and more than 70 million total unique users in the United States. Social network Flickr, having over 35,000,000 users, allows users to upload photos and share them with other users. The Internet-based service “Yelp!” allows users to identify a venue of interests such as a restaurant based on proximity to a user's location, and download data such as photos and brief reviews relating to a venue of interest. “Yelp!” also allows users to upload data related to a selected venue of interest, such as photos and brief reviews, to the “Yelp!” database. According to the “Yelp!” web site, as of March 2010, “Yelp!” reports 31,000,000 visitors accessed “Yelp!” in the prior 30 days, and “Yelp!” users have written over 10,000,000 reviews (http://www.yelp.com/about, retrieved May 29, 2010).
In another field of endeavor, the evolution of GPS locator system applications has led to compact GPS locator systems that provide maps and voice queues to aid in navigation based on location and orientation. Examples include units from Magellan and Garmin, which can be purchased at consumer electronics stores.
In another field of endeavor, the evolution of compact mobile computing devices connected to a wireless digital network, such as the iPhone, produced by Apple, Inc., has led to the development and distribution of a variety of applications that make use of the GPS locator system and other locator systems to identify the location the mobile computing device and download data related to the identified location. Examples of downloaded data include digital maps and listings of nearby restaurants. The “Yelp!” iPhone application establishes user location using built-in iPhone GPS capability and identifies venues of interest according to proximity.
In another field of endeavor, the Google Earth application establishes user location and downloads image information according to a user's location. This image information includes digital maps, satellite imagery, and ground-based imagery. Using Google Earth and the Google application Picasa, an image may be geotagged to link it to a particular location.
What is lacking in the art is a field-accessed database method and system that allows a member of a user community to identify an object by a data identifier, and to store data corresponding to an identified object by employing its data identifier to group it with other data related to the same object, for retrieval by other members of the user community seeking data on the same object. What is further lacking is a system and method that accomplishes storage and/or retrieval of data in this manner using data identifiers that specify the location of an object.